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The Travel Itch

It’s summertime, and I should be going somewhere.

Three years ago, I was headed to China with Wendy Wu Tours. To this day, I have never seen an evening skyline to match Shanghai’s from the Bund District. Two years ago, I cruised the Danube between Prague and Budapest with Mayflower Tours. Is there anything more relaxing than a late-afternoon beer on the top deck of a river vessel that is making its way to the next city?  Last year, I spent a week in Nice with Collette. A walk along the Mediterranean on the Promenade des Anglais makes for one of Europe’s most memorable strolls.

Maybe, I just did not do a good job of managing my opportunities this year. Our new staff writer, Savannah Osbourn, raised her hand immediately for our VIA Rail trip across Canada from Vancouver to Toronto. VIA Rail is hosting Savannah, and Anderson Tours is helping with some sightseeing plans in both anchor cities. A rail trip across the vast beauty of Canada — I’m jealous.

Our senior writer, Herb Sparrow, is joining a group for a moving tour of World War II sites in France with the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. These trips are expertly organized and guided by America’s foremost museum for that historic war. Imagine standing on the beaches of Normandy or paying your respects at the American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer. Herb will never forget this trip, I’m sure. Nor would I.

I hope I’m the only person reading this article who is feeling somewhat travel deprived. I hope all of you who have travel followings will pull this issue from a beach bag with a canopy of trees above you and the sun melting into the horizon, or maybe read it online from a street-side hotel room in some distant city.

It’s a tremendous freedom we enjoy in this country to move about from place to place. Enjoy it with your travelers.

Don’t worry about me. The grass won’t grow for long under these feet.

Mac Lacy

Mac Lacy is president and publisher of The Group Travel Leader Inc. Mac has been traveling and writing professionally ever since a two-month backpacking trip through Europe upon his graduation with a journalism degree from the University of Evansville in 1978.